Jump to content

Rowing

Js1

By Js1
in UT Sports

 Share

Recommended Posts

ButtFumble

ButtFumble 5,179

Posted
Posted

I am so damn glad for the Texas female athletes that someone finally came along in a leadership position and told them they can win championships in actual sports instead of just being happy to participate and to have a female administration that sucks up resources for them

well done ladies Texas Women's Sports are really taking things to another level

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
perfectchaos007

perfectchaos007 6,642

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, ButtFumble said:

I am so damn glad for the Texas female athletes that someone finally came along in a leadership position and told them they can win championships in actual sports instead of just being happy to participate and to have a female administration that sucks up resources for them

well done ladies Texas Women's Sports are really taking things to another level

I wonder if Texas has ever won 3 team NCAA titles in an academic year. That’s where we’re at so far and still a few sports left before the academic year ends. CDC has to be proud 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ButtFumble

ButtFumble 5,179

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

I wonder if Texas has ever won 3 team NCAA titles in an academic year. That’s where we’re at so far and still a few sports left before the academic year ends. CDC has to be proud 

Women's alone won 5 in 1986

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Longhorns#NCAA_team_championships

Basketball

Cross Country

Indoor Track and Field

Outdoor Track and Field

Swimming

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted

There is men's NCAA rowing, or "Crew".  I did it one year in a novice boat at Div. I Stetson University (1994-95) after I got cut from the baseball team.  There's not enough programs to this day to really fill out a national platform.  But it does exist with a few dozen east coast programs, and then a handful of California teams.  The formats/boats are different from women in terms of personnel and numbers.  

Basically, UT doesn't have a men's NCAA team and probably never will.  So who cares.  Congrats to the Women of Texas Rowing.  

As stated above, it's so great to see what our School can do without the bullshit of Conradt/Plonsky weighing it down.  Women are just killing it in so many sports.  Two national titles this week.  Almost made it to women's college world series.  Golf, Track & Field, Volleyball, and Swimming---all Top 5.  When you recruit and facilitate excellence the administrative and coaching levels...the championships will follow.  And awe are proving that time and time and time again on the Women's Side.  Congrats to everybody from Hartzell, to Del Conte, and all the Longhorn Women of these 4 boats.  Most importantly, excellent students in the classroom to boot.  Hook 'EM! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bevo in VA

Bevo in VA 342

Posted
Posted
How come there’s no men’s NCAA rowing?
Mens rowing has never been an ncaa sport. Due to title 9 they made the womens an official NCAA sanctioned sport. A lot of the smaller traditional mens rowing schools have dropped it over the past few years.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Machinator

Machinator 32,099

Posted
Posted (edited)

FCB

Spoiler

NO ONE CARES ABOUT ROWING - RIGHT?
Seven-year Texas rowing coach Dave O’Neill knows you almost never think about rowing or probably see it as the lowest-profile sport at UT.

“But I always say, ‘If you want to be noticed, do something noticeable,’” said O’Neill, who just won his third NCAA team title - his first at Texas after winning two at Cal (in 2005 and 2006).

Texas' third national championship of the 2020-21 school year - to go along with men's swimming and diving and women's tennis - caught the attention of UT's Minister of Culture, who sent a congratulatory tweet to Texas' rowers.

“Has there ever been a bigger celebrity shoutout for Texas rowing than Matthew McConaughey?” O’Neill laughed. “That got the most attention from everybody.”

There are a couple lessons O’Neill coaches every day in his sport that people can apply to their own lives. He trains his athletes to embrace chaos and gets them to think of how they can use it to their advantage. And he trains his athletes to max out on adrenaline in the final 500 meters of a 1,500-meter race - when the pain and suffering is at its height.

“At that point in a race, we want our rowers to hear the coxswain saying, ‘We’re moving!’ - because information is motivation, and the adrenaline takes over at that point,” O’Neill said.

The third staple of O’Neill’s program is, “Hard work plus a good attitude equals success. It’s a simple formula, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

Some of you reading this have rowing machines collecting dust in your garage or purposely avoid the rowing machines at your health club because you KNOW it's not easy.

At the NCAAs, rowing is decided by seven minutes of hell - races involving two, eight-women crews, known as the First Varsity Eight (the top eight rowers) and Second Varsity Eight (self explanatory), as well as a four-woman crew (known as the Varsity Fours).

Texas had chaos last weekend with equipment breaking on Saturday and a two-hour weather delay before the First Varsity Eight took part in the grand final on Sunday - the race that would determine the national championship between the top three teams: Washington, Stanford and Texas.

Of course, O’Neill had his rowers convinced that the two-hour weather delay was 100 percent in their favor.

Heading into the grand final, Texas was in third place with 60 points, trailing Washington (66 points) and Stanford (64 points). To win the national title, the Longhorns would need to win the grand final and have Stanford finish ahead of Washington.

Because O’Neill trains his teams to max out over the final 500 meters of a 2,000-meter race, the Longhorns pulled away from Washington and Stanford in the Final Eight to clinch the team national title.

“We have certain moments within the race we are really trying to focus on,” O’Neill said. “In that third 500, which is often the most grueling part of the race, they really focused and fought hard.

“As we started to pull away from Washington with 700 meters to go, I was like this is starting to go our way. And then, when we pulled away from Stanford with 250 meters to go, I was like, ‘My goodness, we’re going to do it.’”

For years, O’Neill has found female athletes already on campus who fit the rowing profile - tall, strong and determined - and turned them into top-notch rowers.

“There might be a swimmer who is 5-feet-11 who is really good, but not performing where she wanted to be at Texas,” O’Neill said. “We say to her, 'How about rowing?' Most of the members of the U.S. Olympic rowing team learned to row in college.”

After finishing fourth at NCAAs in 2017, third in 2018 and runner-up in 2019 before winning it all this year, O’Neill is now attracting the best junior rowers in the world.

“When people think of Texas, they think of a football school with great tradition in swimming and other sports,” O’Neill said. “But we want to make Texas a rowing school, too. I did always think if we could win a national title at Texas, it would be special, and it would be celebrated.”

In addition to a new, $60 million practice facility that rowing will share with basketball due to open in 2022, O’Neill has a loaded class of recruits coming to Texas in the fall, and many of his key contributors to this year’s national championship are coming back.

The coxswain, the diminutive members of the rowing team who sit in the front of the racing shell (boat) and inform the rest of the team how they’re doing and what they need to be doing during a race, never put their hands on an oar.

But they are, in many ways, the most critical members of the team, because, as O’Neill says, the coxswain is part “psychologist, part motivator and part coach.”

“It’s their job to keep everyone on task, so that when we hit those final 500 meters, the rowers are hearing the coxswain say, ‘We’re moving!’” O’Neill said.

O’Neill’s coxswain in the First Varsity Eight - Rachel Rane - is a sophomore, and his coxswain in the Second Varsity Eight - Elizabeth Romero - is a redshirt freshman.

The future is bright. O’Neill’s previous team national championships at Cal came in back-to-back years. So could Texas be in position to repeat next year?

“Repeat?” O’Neill said. “We’ll see. We have a good group of athletes coming in. We’re not a one-hit wonder. We’re built to last for sure.”

One last thing: O'Neill has jokingly - but not jokingly - said a big part of his coaching philosophy is rowing can change the world. "Rowing can change the world, because what you learn in rowing in terms of goal-setting, collaboration, delayed gratification, dealing with failure, dealing with pain, compromise—all of those things happen in a team environment in the pursuit of being really good," O'Neill said.

And all of those things happen in life. So maybe it's time for us to start walking toward those rowing machines instead of the other direction, especially now that Texas is also a rowing school.

 

Edited by Machinator
  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 5 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...